Like this:

So after being since March 9th, without even speaking about the news which have been going on these past days, Rajoy emerges from the shadows and points out to Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, a young prepared woman, as PP speaker in Congress. But you know, for me this is not a question of being a woman or a man, of being old or young. It’s a question of being convinced of what you do and being tough defending it. It’s not easy, but nobody is going to defend it for you.

This is a job of the utmost responsibility that implies you must have enough experience to cope with it, without doubting or feeling sorry for what you are. What happens? That she is not perceived as tough, only as “prepared” and “very inclined to dialogue”, two things that opposition these days should be very cautious to consider: the Government is formed in general by stupid unprepared people who have left us glorious phrases over the last term. And to dialogue you must be first convinced about what you defend, something Ms. Soraya is not: she wants PP to be a center party, something a lot of us do not agree with.

If you are known by your antagonists, then it’s curious that the people who should be hers are so happy with her appointment. From LD:

El Pais’s main opinion article considers that the appointment of Soraya is the proof of a “prudente aggiornamento”. It also adds that she is “an expert in Autonomic matters, not only belongs to a new political generation, but only has the support of her good knowledge of law and a easy attitude which are recognised by all the people which negotiate with her the reforms of the Statutes of Autonomy pased in the last term”.

The main page of the Zapatero’s friend, Público, can’t be more meaningful. Over a photo of Alonso and Soraya, there is the title: “First target: bury the confrontation”. This newspaper identifies the confrontation with the work in defense of the principles of PP made by the last speaker, Zaplana, in the last term. They see a gesture of moderation and define Soraya as “diplomatic but firm, having a great memory and as an expert in bypassing the difficult problems using argumentos”.

Also Socialists are very happy with her appointment. Their new Congress speaker, José Antonio Alonso thinks that they are going to “get on well” and that they are going to “create the necessary conditions to arrive to consensus on counter-terrorism policy, foreign policy, security and common defense”.

Even the Catalan Government has celebrated the news. Catalan Republican Left’s speaker in Congress, Joan Ridao, and the elected MP of Catalan Left-Greens, Joan Herrera, celebrated as a “good news”that the new speaker of Congress has that “more inclined to dialogue profile” that the last one, Eduardo Zaplana.

The problem with her is that, not only all the undersigners of the Tinell Pact (that pact that excluded Popular Party nearly from all parlamentary life) are very happy about her, but that I don’t think she has the courage or the tough ways to confront what we have ahead. I don’t think Spain needs someone we have to wait to see if she does it OK. Spain needs someone who has the guts to confront the rest of the parties, because in most subjects (censorship in Internet, SGAE’s canon on digital devices, terrorism, justice, immigration…) PP is alone. Spain doesn’t have time.

And since the first time, she has not confronted people who has spoken to her in a very unrespectful way. It’s known here that important journalists Pedro J. Ramírez (El Mundo) and Federico Jiménez Losantos (COPE) want to influence PP, just as mainly PRISA has done with PSOE. And they are not happy with the appointment. Me neither. But what you cannot ask in the first interview with someone is “Have you reproduced yourself yet?”. That is not only a very bad taste question, it’s clearly a question he wouldn’t have asked a man or a middle-aged woman.

And she just answered the question. No, that’s not a way to treat such people. You should defend yourself and show you have the qualities for the job.

The same happens with the ideology: there are several “ideologues” who want to convince people that in Spain there are only far-rightists or centered people. That right-wingers, that is, conservative or moderate conservative don’t exist. Well, this is going to disappoint you but WE exist (I am more or less a wild-born conservative, that is, do you want me to change my views? Well, give me rational reasons for that or just get off to bore in another place). And no, people like me don’t want Franco (or his ideological sons) to come back. We don’t want Catholicism to be the official religion. And we don’t eat little children. We support freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of criticism against power and separation of Church and State, although considering that the work that the Catholic Church does regarding security services is very important and must be considered by the State, who saves lots of money with it. But hey, that does not mean people should worship the Church, just consider it as another NGO with much less costs for society and State. In my case, I’m for the self-financed Church, but its earnings would go first for Catholics and supporters, rest of it for charity. Because we are brothers but not idiots.

Well, most conservatives have voted PP as there is no other party with reasonable ideas (no, please, AES or similar are NOT reasonable for me…) to vote for. I voted as I wrote here, mainly because I didn’t like Zapatero and was fearing the consequences for freedom of expression his new term was going to bring.

Like this:

Any time I found someone writing in English about what I want to write it’s a pleasure… even if the subject is so disagreeable and dispicable as is the Mari Luz case. John, the editor of Iberian Notes, has written about it in his blog: I wouldn’t have said this better.

“The big news in Spain is the Mari Luz case. Down in Huelva some sex pervert kidnapped and murdered a little girl named Mari Luz back in January, and they just found her body a few days ago. The perv has been arrested, and here’s the fun part: he had two prior convictions for child sexual abuse, once on his own daughter, and they never bothered actually putting him in jail.

The judiciary is being seriously questioned over this one, since the pervert never should have been anywhere near this child. Jail is made for sick bastards who go around sexually abusing kids, not for people who smoke pot or write bad checks. Spain, by the way, does not have a register of sex offenders, though it does have one of woman-beaters, and there is no law requiring that people be informed if a sex offender is living in their neighborhood, either.

Mari Luz was from a gypsy family that is integrated into society, while the perv seems to be a lower-class payo. The Huelva gypsies are understandably very angry, and they’ve tried to lynch both the perv and one of his brothers (who is almost certainly innocent, though the perv’s wife might have helped him cover up the crime).

This guy would be a clear death penalty candidate in the US, and I’d have no problem voting for it if I were on the jury.”

Really the people here are very angry about this, as you can imagine. But above all, as John points out before, of course, the most angry of all is the father of the little girl, who has announced legal actions against the responsibles and has asked “for responsibilities, specially political ones”. He has also asked the Minister of Justice, Bermejo, to give his opinion about the case. And understandably, he has asked for the Penal Code to be changed and the pedophiles be in prison for life. Even if that’s something that a lot of people here would support (the pedophiles are not in most cases reinserted or resocialized), I don’t think it would even get to parliament as political correctness is a value here.

Popular Party has asked the Government to accept the responsibility of the people in charge of the case and has announced some measures. I am anxious to see what measures are they considering for this case, specially because this is the first time they open their mouths after losing the elections and being more worried about the seat under their asses than about Spanish future.

Things are getting even more complicated after the so-depedent from Socialist Government newspaper, El País, has published that the Judge’s office responsible of the process, was investigated last November without detecting any irregularities. As the investigating office depends directly from the General Council of the Judicial Power, the investigation will also have to say if that service wasn’t working fine and where its error was.

Anyway, El Mundo has published that in that same investigation there were detected some “little” unjustified delays in the Judge’s way of handling the cases. And that the same Judge was fined in 1995 for unjustified delays in another case of another minor’s mistreatment.